Activity 2: Moments Of Courage - Acting It Out

Materials for Activity

Preparation for Activity

Review Handout 1: Moments of Courage Skit Rules. You may want to adapt the handout to specify how much time you will give participants to (1) plan and (2) perform their skits. Print out a handout for each group.

Identify some spaces in or near your meeting room where small groups can create their skits without being easily overheard. Plan where all will gather to watch one another's skits. This activity would work well outdoors on a nice day.

Be ready to offer suggestions if groups struggle for moments of courage to enact.

Description of Activity

Form groups of three or four. If the group has fewer than six children, have them stay together as one group, with co-leaders as the audience.

Instruct each group to come up with a moment to enact in which a person shows particular courage and conviction. It can be a famous person or a famous moment, or an everyday moment.

Distribute copies of Handout 1: Moments of Courage Skit Rules and go over them with the group:

All members of the group must be included in some way in the acting.

They can make noise in their acting if it is relevant to what they are trying to convey, but they cannot use recognizable language (i.e., they cannot speak).

There will be a time limit for practicing (which you can set and enforce - a couple of minutes is usually fine).

The performance should be brief, and participants should be prepared to repeat it or offer a hint or two, in case the audience cannot guess what they are doing (For example,. "This is a famous moment in the twentieth century," or "This is something you might see at school.").

Give participants the time you have allotted to create a skit. Visit all the groups as they work to make sure they are on track and to offer help as needed.

When time is up, bring the groups together. Have each group perform, and invite the other groups to guess the moment of courage being acted out. Once an audience member has identified the moment of courage, ask the performing group what courage and convictions were displayed in their chosen moment.

Repeat for two or three rounds, as time allows.

Variations

If you feel that participants have appropriate experiences to draw from, ask them to choose moments from their own lives, or moments they have witnessed. If they have previously studied a particular time frame or area of Unitarian Universalist history, ask them to identify and enact a moment from our tradition. You may like to add a round in which groups act out a future moment that might call for their courage, including a demonstration of how they would hope to act.